For Droopy: Skousen and the Tyranny of Judicial Review

[_Socrates]

Socrates--

As with most anti-intellectual leftists who have been raised on a steady diet of public school pabulum, you are confusing the issue. You seem to think that the reasoning behind a court decision is what matters and what justifies the result, under the assumption that this has been a principle of Anglo-American jurisprudence for several hundred years.

Let me make it simple for you:

If a one-sentence summary of a court decision seems to affirm my personal value judgments, regardless of what the practical effect of that decision might be, then it is judicial review.

If a one-sentence summary of a court decision seems to say that people have the freedom to do things that are inconsistent with my personal value judgments, regardless of what the practical effect of that decision might be, then it is judicial activism.

I stand so confused. I take judges and other people at their word (and those that they write) until I have reason to suspect and then (if there are more reasons) to believe otherwise. I know. It's rather naïve of me. That's why I was probably a Mormon for as many years as I was. By the way, how do you pronounce "tomato"?

[_Darth J]

Socrates--

Perhaps you would not be so confused if you realized that when judges and other people suggest that someone has the right to do things that you don't like because of your personal value judgments, you automatically have a reason to suspect them.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Do you still have that glove O.J. dropped, Johnnie, or did you donate it to the ACLU?

God.

I mean. Jesus.

What a devastatingly intellecutal argument Mr. Droopy, a.k.a. Loran Blood, has made once again on behalf of Mormonism!

Ex-Mormons are Communist Pigs!

V/R
Dr. Cam

[_EAllusion]

Yes! McNaughton as a few other paintings like his infamous Jesus and the Constitution one now. And they're all comparably awful.

http://www.mcnaughtonart.com/artwork/vi ... ce_id=319#

The best part of that one is how much of a short shrift Asian warfare gets. That or "Arab".

http://www.mcnaughtonart.com/artwork/vi ... ece_id=379

http://www.mcnaughtonart.com/artwork/vi ... ece_id=413

Haha! Keep 'em comin.

[_Yahoo Bot]

In that hilariously awful, yet vaguely frightening painting by Mormon artist Jon McNaughton, you can see a judge covering his face in shame in Satan's corner over famous Supreme Court cases the painter hates. One of those is Marbury vs. Madison, which established the precedent of judicial review.

You frighten easily? I've heard of children being frightened by pictures of clowns, but not adults frightened by religious art.

As I say in one of my published papers:

Thomas Jefferson said that the "great object of my fear is the federal judiciary. That body, like gravity, ever acting with noiseless foot & unalarming advance, [is] gaining ground step by step. . . . Let the eye of vigilance never be closed." He condemned the judiciary's usurpation of the legislative prerogatives with its pious interpretation of its own brand of Christianity.

Even liberals claim judicial activism.

[_The Dude]

Yes! McNaughton as a few other paintings like his infamous Jesus and the Constitution one now. And they're all comparably awful.

http://www.mcnaughtonart.com/artwork/vi ... ce_id=319#

The best part of that one is how much of a short shrift Asian warfare gets. That or "Arab".

http://www.mcnaughtonart.com/artwork/vi ... ece_id=379

http://www.mcnaughtonart.com/artwork/vi ... ece_id=413

Haha! Keep 'em comin.

Wow, you can really learn a lot of history from those paintings. Especially about who was good and who was bad in American history.

Obama stepping on the constintution?!!! Unbelievable that makes my blood boil.

I'm surprised McNaughton held back from painting Monica Lewinski kneeling in front of Bill Clinton with her fingers on his pats zipper.

Wow, man. Just wow. McNaughton is a piece of work.

[_Milesius]

Yes! McNaughton as a few other paintings like his infamous Jesus and the Constitution one now. And they're all comparably awful.

http://www.mcnaughtonart.com/artwork/vi ... ce_id=319#

The best part of that one is how much of a short shrift Asian warfare gets. That or "Arab".

http://www.mcnaughtonart.com/artwork/vi ... ece_id=379

http://www.mcnaughtonart.com/artwork/vi ... ece_id=413

Haha! Keep 'em comin.

Jesus didn't live in Gondor. And Constantine didn't have a beard.

[_EAllusion]

Jesus didn't live in Gondor. And Constantine didn't have a beard.

The "modern Christian" totally looks like he's about to slap Jesus.

[_Tarski]

Yes! McNaughton as a few other paintings like his infamous Jesus and the Constitution one now. And they're all comparably awful.

http://www.mcnaughtonart.com/artwork/vi ... ce_id=319#

The best part of that one is how much of a short shrift Asian warfare gets. That or "Arab".

http://www.mcnaughtonart.com/artwork/vi ... ece_id=379

http://www.mcnaughtonart.com/artwork/vi ... ece_id=413

Haha! Keep 'em comin.

Wow, you can really learn a lot of history from those paintings. Especially about who was good and who was bad in American history.

Obama stepping on the constintution?!!! Unbelievable that makes my blood boil.

I'm surprised McNaughton held back from painting Monica Lewinski kneeling in front of Bill Clinton with her fingers on his pats zipper.

Wow, man. Just wow. McNaughton is a piece of work.

Yeh wow.
And yet it so captures the spirit of the right -especially the religious right and the tea party.
The spirit I am talking about is a simplistic black and white (racial overtones intended) childish worldview full of conspiracy and immanent apocalypse. A worldview so childishly full of simple 1D characters and lurking bogeymen, it is a wonder Scooby Doo doesn't appear somewhere in McNaughton's paintings.

The world is going to hell in a hand basket!! (not because of greed, war and injustice but because of welfare mothers, string bikinis, and universal healthcare).

Edit to add: And yes George Washington did chop down a cherry tree and didn't lie about it!

[_EAllusion]

Wow, you can really learn a lot of history from those paintings. Especially about who was good and who was bad in American history.

Obama stepping on the constintution?!!! Unbelievable that makes my blood boil.

I'm surprised McNaughton held back from painting Monica Lewinski kneeling in front of Bill Clinton with her fingers on his pats zipper.

Wow, man. Just wow. McNaughton is a piece of work.

Hmmm. You can tell from the presidential one that McNaughton is a mix between a Rockwell-style paleolibertarian and a strict religious right type. Michelle Bachmann is a good modern representative. I don't think a good label has been developed for that group.

He spends an inordinate amount of focus on the goldstandard in his blurbs revealing that he must be a hardcore goldbug.

His whole style is childishly literal minded, but I at least see how one would argue that Obama is metaphorically stepping on the Constitution. Obama's administration has argued for the executive being completely above judicial oversight when it declares an issue a matter of classified national security. It has attempted to assassinate American citizens without due process. Those are profound affronts to the Constitution in relatively unique ways. The former places the president above the law at will, though probably is not the sort of thing that McNaughton chiefly has in mind with his picture. But then what of other figures in the painting? Andrew Jackson is with the good guys, presumably for killing the 2nd Bank of the US, despite ignoring the rule of law to effectively engage in genocide against a sovereign people. Another good guy, John Adams, signed into law an act that made it illegal to harshly criticize the government. The whole affair is so black and white and ahistorical that it's silly.

yahoo -

I called it vaguely frightening simply because I find it a little creepy is all.